With the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth, network resources in cellular networks, such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, are under increasing strain. To increase capacity, the latest version of 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards introduced direct communication between proximate user equipment (UE). Device-to-device (D2D) communications occur directly between UEs instead of conveying data between UEs through the radio and core network. D2D communication between UEs provides performance and efficiency enhancements in LTE networks, including improvements in coverage, spectral efficiency, data rates, and Quality of service (QoS), as well as enabling new services such as direct multimedia transmission between the UEs. D2D communication also provides an avenue for new peer-to-peer and location-based applications and services.
To enable D2D communications, UEs may transmit directly to other D2D using cellular resources. The UE may also desire to communicate with one or more different sets of UEs using the resources, which may cause issues if the resources overlap. It would thus be desirable to be able to resolve issues arising from overlapping D2D resources.